WaPo: Trump, Sessions to Thwart GOP on Obama TPP

In the Washington Post, Greg Sargent notes that Donald Trump may be about to gain even more political support:

So you think Donald Trump’s demagoguery on immigration has created problems for the other GOP candidates? Well, another very ripe opportunity for Trump to make his GOP rivals even more miserable may be lurking right around the corner, and it could expose the same sort of schism between GOP elites and GOP voters that Trump’s forays into immigration policy have.

I’m talking about the massive global trade deal called the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Some time in the next six months — in late 2015 or in early 2016 — the participating nations may finally reach a deal on the TPP. That may well come just when the GOP primaries are heating up.

Virtually all of the major GOP presidential candidates, including Jeb Bush, Scott Walker, and Marco Rubio, all support the TPP, as do Republican Congressional leaders.

But, in a little noticed move a few days ago, Trump signaled that he might be headed in a very different direction on the TPP soon enough. After his terrific and wonderful rally outside the Capitol the other day, Trump met with Senator Jeff Sessions, and both men enthusiastically recounted that they had had a good conversation about immigration and …. trade. Said Trump: “The meeting was great!”

Sessions is a leading opponent of the TPP. He has warned that the TPP could harm American workers and allow China to join the deal later without the approval of the U.S. Congress; he has also said that it won’t do anything to counter Chinese currency manipulation and could facilitate the flow of “foreign workers” into the United States.